So is Doctor Who all about a vain previous time - traveler who goes around dragging masses into horrible danger just to stoke his ego ? Does the Doctor create a vast dark fable about himself as a mighty warrior and then draft average people to be bit - players in his immense saga ?
We ’ve pose some pretty sinister views of the Doctor , and the Doctor - companion relationship , lately . But luckily today ’s episode , “ Closing Time , ” gave us a much more convinced view — the Doctor saves one of his friend one last time , and along the way he shows how he does actually make masses better . pillager beforehand …
If we ’re to consider the medico ’s statements in “ The Impossible Astronaut ” ( and some stuff the production team has say in interviews ) , then “ Closing Time ” conduct place a full 200 age after last calendar week ’s “ The God Complex , ” in terms of the Doctor ’s own timeline . The longsighted gap between Doctor Who stories ever — and in the meantime , the Doctor has had meter to go through all the adventures in River Song ’s little blasphemous diary , and he and River have had a whole lifespan together . ( This also makes the Eleventh Doctor possibly themost long - lived Doctorsince William Hartnell . But of course , if you believeStephen Moffat , the Doctor “ has no clue ” how onetime he in reality is . )
Anyway , a long time has passed between stories — long enough for the Doctor to receive Jim the Fish and have a ton of other adventures with River that we ’ll believably never get to see . And now the Doctor is prepare , at last , to go meet his sure decease by the side of Lake Silencio in Utah . The Doctor has essentially give up on being the Doctor at this percentage point — he read “ I am done saving them ” as he endeavor to malinger away in the TARDIS instead of investigating signs of a Cyberman incursion , and by and large seems aweary of being an epic Cuban sandwich .
So it ’s a adept affair that the ally the Doctor goes to visit is Craig , who ’s had pretty much an unequivocally sweet relationship with the Time Lord . Craig hump that the safest berth during an alien crisis is correct by the Doctor ’s side — it ’s the people who get split up from the Doctor who tend to get toasted . And Craig knows the Doctor is a good fella , and he ’s here to help , and stuff . “ You always win . You always pull round , ” he aver . And he convinces the Doctor that his days of bring through people , and go with a companion , are n’t quite over yet .
And then the Doctor pulsate himself up later on , because the Cybermat nearly kills Craig and Alfie , and it ’s his mistake . And he nigh descends into ego - pity and ego - abominate because he puts multitude in danger — until Craig point out that the obvious : if the Doctor had n’t testify up , there still would have been Cybermen in Craig ’s neighborhood and nobody to struggle them . And in fact , if the Doctor had n’t been around , the world would be a disaster . And Craig goes to save the Doctor because he need someone by his side , and he just wo n’t admit it . And Craig owes the Doctor because he would n’t have his home if it was n’t for the Doctor .
The last fourth dimension the Doctor adjudicate to travel on his own and felt as though he did n’t want to inflict his lifestyle on a companion , we got the ultra - insane “ Waters of Mars ” and a general sense of the Doctor go way of life off the rails . But this clock time around , we get a amazingly sweet , affirmative reminder of how the Doctor is a military group for good , at the personal spirit level as well as the cosmic degree .
And he helps in this taradiddle , as well . Poor one-time Craig need to memorize to think in himself and his parenting inherent aptitude as a pappa , and win Stormageddon ’s trustingness and respect . So the whole time the Doctor is investigating the Cyberman invasion , he ’s also giving Craig a boost , and showing Craig piddling thing like wearing a papoose so that he will be quicker when Stormageddon summons him .
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=65-04pSslOQ
After a couple of jolly intense , serious sequence , “ Closing Time ” was a welcome injection of comedy , and a worthy subsequence to last year ’s “ The Lodger . ” You have to love the babe deciding his name is Stormageddon , Lord of All , and that everybody besides his female parent is either “ not - mum ” or “ bucolic . ” And the Doctor go to work in a shop selling toys , was a brilliant succession . ( And is this the first time Star Trek has been explicitly name - chequer on Doctor Who ? ) I ’m frankly not go to be able to list all the hilarious bits in this instalment , but there were ton — some of the practiced drollery writing we ’ve go out on Doctor Who in ages . ( Oh , and a few shout - out to Doctor Who ’s past : “ You ’ve had this place redecorated . I do n’t like it ” from “ The Five Dr. , ” and the mini - poem “ Not a rat , a Cybermat ” from the novelisation of “ Revenge of the Cybermen . ” Oh , and the Cyber - chop from “ The Moonbase . ” )
The one thing that menace to bug me about this episode was the surfeit of “ bromance is homoerotic ” jest — the erstwhile Simon Pegg / Nick Frost chestnut tree about two nerdy cat having a penny-pinching friendly relationship that everybody call back is an factual romance . Everybody who sees the Doctor and Craig with Stormageddon thinks that they ’re a family , etc . But at least the tale pushes this paper so far , it reach almost absurdist levels , with the Doctor threaten to kiss Craig and call Craig “ my baby . ” Plus it ’s all so good - natured , it ’s hard to be annoyed .
The other affair that did bug me a midget flake was the way the episode leans heavily on stereotypes — including the clueless pappa who ’s hopeless with his infant , and all of the assorted shopgirls who do n’t quite read anything — not to observe Sheila . And the idea that the Doctor ’s shushing trick works on baby , plus that one shopgirl and the security guard , is a bit repulsive . As if sure dull grown - ups are just like babies . Still , all in all , this was a passably apt fun episode .
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_IHESeNYZuw
So in the end , Craig ’s newfound parenting instincts save the 24-hour interval , because the visual sense of his sister is so powerful that it causes him to sweep over the Cyber - conditioning and screw up the whole Cyber - plan . ( Although this flies in the nerve of everything we ’ve ever instruct about Cyber - conversion , in which Craig ought to have been partially dismembered and his brain surgically altered — but perchance the Cybermen are on such depressed power , they ’re going with the downhearted - economic rent steal cellar version of Cyber - conversion . ) And yes , Craig “ blow them up with love . ” The Doctor , in round , uses up his last hour to clean up Craig ’s apartment instead of going and seeing the miraculous Alignment of Exador .
But did n’t the Doctor screw up his literal companions ? Like Amy and Rory ? patently not . Amy is a manner model now ! ( Rose Tyler becomes the defender of the Earth , Sarah Jane Smith teams up with two alien supercomputer to protect the planet , Martha Jones joins U.N.I.T. and becomes a freelance alien - hunter … and Amy is a manner model . Huh . ) At least Amy seems felicitous , and the Doctor can stalk her from a safe length instead of ramble up and saying hi like a normal person .
But in spite of Craig help the Doctor to see that he ’s not really all that terrible , and he really does aid hoi polloi and ennoble them and poppycock , he still ca n’t escape his doom — so at the ending of the episode , he puts on Craig ’s cowboy hat and goes off to get killed , and it ’s a weirdly naff scene in which the Doctor gives a little speech to three perplexed nestling , who still remember it as adult years subsequently , and their remembrances in crook are interpret by River M of year in the future , when she ’s just finished her Ph.D. in Doctorology . She ’s a medico in being ghost with the Doctor . I ’m give-up the ghost to know what her thesis was .
Anyway , River is stick over her main sources — which are on composition , with photos attached , even though it ’s the far future — when Madame Kovarian shows up and announces that now that River has her doctor’s degree , it ’s time for her to go fulfill her destiny . ( Why now ? Why not when she was a piffling girl ? ) And even though River seems totally normal , Madame Kovarian enounce that she and the alien leaders of the Silence have messed with her “ somewhat little head ” so much that she ’ll do whatever they desire . It appears that River has been brainwashed many , many times over the years by the Silence , and they ’re her “ possessor . ” “ You never really escaped us , ” Madame Kovarian says , with a giant pantomime leer from her one eye .
But in cattiness of all this subtle alien mind control , River still clamber and has to be physically drag away and put inside her mortal space suit at the bottom of a lake . Basically , the most rubbish alien brainwashing ever . Cue the pestering / creepy-crawly children singing .
( Maybe next calendar week ’s sequence will have ten or fifteen second of River just hanging out at the bottom of the lake , watching the fish going by , and wish she ’d bring a volume ? We ’ll find out soon enough … )
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